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UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 

FOREST SERVICE 

CALIFORNIA 



MESSAGES FROM ABROAD 



FROM AMERICAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCES 
DIVISION OF CONSTRUCTION AND FORESTRY 

France, July 16, 1918, 
" The forestry section is plugging straight ahead, with the deter- 
mination to see to it that the winning of the war shall not be held 
back by the lack of timber, which the Army needs both for offensive 




Through French forests into No Man's Land — Americans advancing with sacks of hand grenades. 

operations at the front and for the services of supply and communi- 
cation in the rear. We are now cutting something like a million feet 
a day — sawed, hewn, and round, not counting fuel wood — but we have 
not yet caught up with the demands of the Army. If you spent a 
week in my office, you would think that this is a lumber war from 
the way the requisitions pour in. We are producing everything 
from 100-foot piles for the docks at our base ports to 18-inch slats 
for the '' duck boards," or board walks, in the bottoms of the trenches. 
Estimates for wire entanglement stakes come in in units of millions. 
The largest demands, however, are for barrack and warehouse lumber 
and railroad ties. We are also sending a lot of heavy timbers to the 
front for bridge construction and bomb proofs, and planking for the 
artillery roads. We are going to plank a road for the American 
Army, if need be, to the River Rhine, and then build a bridge across it. 

116642—19 




"'Can you tell me, Davis, why you have so many forest fires in your country?' asked the Kaiser." 
A forest in California kiUed by fire. 

^'We are making the American mills do some tricks which I 
doubt their ever having done before. Most of our 10,000-foot mills 
are cutting better than 25,000 feet in two shifts, and some have been 
working three shifts. One of them was pulled up the other day, 
moved 18 miles, and began cutting its first log at the new set 47 
hours after the last log was cut at the old set." 



EXTRACT FROM ARTHUR N. DAVIS'S ACCOUNT OF " THE KAISER 
AS I KNEW HIM FOR FOURTEEN YEARS " 

[Appearing in the San Francisco Chronicle of Aug. 10, 1918.] 

^^Can you tell me, Davis, why you have so many forest fires in 
your country?" he (the Kaiser) asked, after a particularly destructive 
conflagration in the West had destroyed many acres of timber. 
^^How does it happen?" 

I explained to him that most of the forest fires came from sparks 
from locomotives.^ Careless lumbermen allow the branches which 
they lopped off the trees to remain on the ground, and when they 
were ignited by sparks the fire sometimes spread to the uncut timber. 

^'That points out again the inefficiency of your form of govern- 
ment," he commented. '' You have laws requiring the railways to use 
appliances to arrest the sparks from their engines, haven't you? 
Why don't you enforce them? Your people don't seem to realize 
that it takes years to grow^ a tree. Because you have more than you 
need to-day, you make no provision for to-morrow. For every tree 
cut down, another should be planted. If you don't adopt some such 

^ Not true for California. During 1918, for instance, locomotives started less than 2 per cent 
of the 1,148 forest fires in the National Forests of the State. 




\iew of a French forest killed by German gun lire. 



measure, the time will surely come when America will have to turn 
to Germany for timber." 



POST CARD FROM COMPANY F, 10th ENGINEERS, A. E. F. 

France, June 15, 1918. 
''Our cut to-day, June 15, in 9 hours and 45 minutes, is 49,800 
feet b. m., or 29,800 feet over capacity, 149 per cent overrun. Some 
cutting! We are so far ahead of all other outfits that to OA^ercut 
them has ceased to be a sport. It is just a matter of course." 



FROM A LUMRERMAN WITH THE ^^LUMRERJACK" REGIMENT 

France, September 5, 1918. 
" It is generally believed in America that the timber resources of 
France are of little, if any, account. As a matter of fact, France is 
quite rich in this respect. According to French records, there is 
available 174,000,000,000 feet of standing timber and the French 
claim that it is increasing by growth 1,500,000,000 feet per annum. 
While much of the timber is small, yet there can be found in certain 
sections of France timber that will compare favorably with some of 
the larger varieties in America. Some of our operations are sawing 
on logs that will run from three to five to the thousand feet. In 
carrying on our operations we are adhering to the rules and customs 
followed by the French in connection with their system of forest 
conservation, which at first seemed strange to us, but after we 
became accustomed to it, we found that it is not only practicable, 
but very necessary as well." 



■«,!il.<?f CONGRESS 



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"The forestry section is plugging straight ahead . . » " — Camp of Tenth Engineers (Forest) in France. 

FROM THE "LUMBERJACK" REGIMENT," A. E. F. 

France, June 15, 1918. 

" I am holding up the job of Fire Warden in the woods now, and 
I expect to be kept pretty busy, as these woods are bad fire traps. 
The trees have all been boxed and the ground is covered with tur- 
pentine shavings; then there is a thick growth of dead grass, and 
brush which burns worse than the grass. 

"About 30 of us went to a big fire which broke out in some 
French timber near here last Sunday. I thought that I might pick 
up some new ideas in fire fighting from the French, but was sadly 
disappointed. There was a bunch of old men, women, and boys on 
the job, without a shovel or an ax in the outfit, and they had never 
heard of back-firing before. They were strong on the wine, though, 
and we fixed it so they did not have to carry so much. 

" The fire biu-ned over about 100 acres and would have burned 
much more if we had not been on the job.'' 



EXTRACT FROM LETTER FROM LIEUT. GIMBAL 

[Published in Sacramento Bee, Nov. 30, 1918.] 

"It is indeed a pretty sentiment — this love of France for her 
trees. It is not gushing nor foolish; it is sincere and noble. And, 
believe me, where it is not voluntary it is enforced. The Frenchman 
naturally obeys the law. But where there is a disposition not to 
obey, he sees quickly that the miscreant is made to understand. 
That is the way in the forests. 

'^ Certain trees are designated to be cut when necessity demands 
it, but talk as you will, you can not take what you will." 



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